How do I get the current date and time in PHP?

The time would go by your server time. An easy workaround for this is to manually set the timezone by using date_default_timezone_set before the date() or time() functions are called to.

I'm in Melbourne, Australia so I have something like this:

date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Melbourne');

Or another example is LA - US:

date_default_timezone_set('America/Los_Angeles');

You can also see what timezone the server is currently in via:

date_default_timezone_get();

So something like:

$timezone = date_default_timezone_get();echo "The current server timezone is: " . $timezone;

So the short answer for your question would be:

// Change the line below to your timezone!date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Melbourne');$date = date('m/d/Y h:i:s a', time());

Then all the times would be to the timezone you just set :)

// Simply:$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');// Or:$date = date('Y/m/d H:i:s');// This would return the date in the following formats respectively:$date = '2012-03-06 17:33:07';// Or$date = '2012/03/06 17:33:07';/**  * This time is based on the default server time zone. * If you want the date in a different time zone, * say if you come from Nairobi, Kenya like I do, you can set * the time zone to Nairobi as shown below. */date_default_timezone_set('Africa/Nairobi');// Then call the date functions$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');// Or$date = date('Y/m/d H:i:s');// date_default_timezone_set() function is however// supported by PHP version 5.1.0 or above.

For a time-zone reference, see List of Supported Timezones.

Since PHP 5.2.0 you can use the DateTime() class:

use \Datetime;$now = new DateTime();echo $now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');    // MySQL datetime formatecho $now->getTimestamp();           // Unix Timestamp -- Since PHP 5.3

And to specify the timezone:

$now = new DateTime(null, new DateTimeZone('America/New_York'));$now->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Europe/London'));    // Another wayecho $now->getTimezone();